Alan Horn, the President and COO of Warner Bros. Pictures, announced yesterday that the company has pushed back the release date of the film adaptaion of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to July 17, 2009. (The original release date for the sixth installment of the blockbuster Harry Potter franchise November 2008.) According to Horn:

"[Like] every other studio, we are still feeling the repercussions of the writers' strike, which impacted the readiness of scripts for other films--changing the competitive landscape for 2009 and offering new windows of opportunity that we wanted to take advantage of. We agreed the best strategy was to move 'Half-Blood Prince' to July, where it perfectly fills the gap for a major tent pole release for mid-summer."

Read: they'll make more money if it's the middle of summer, and their core audience is hot, bored, and torturing their parents.